How to Identify, Clean, & Value Sterling Silver Jewelry with Flipside CEO, Jess Pittman
Sterling silver collection
Welcome back to On the Flipside with Notorious Vintage, with me, Tori Sandler of Notorious Vintage!👋 This is our first *official* post, and it’s jam-packed with so much valuable information not only for resellers but for anyone who wears jewelry.
Last summer, I purchased a large collection of all kinds of jewelry from an estate sale, from gold necklaces to silver brooches, southwestern gems, bracelet charms, costume jewelry all the way to the rare expensive stuff- and literally everything in between. As someone who sells primarily vintage clothing, to say I was in over my head would be an understatement, so I packed the collection away in boxes in hopes it would somehow magically inventory itself, only for it to sit and haunt me for the next year.
That is, until one of my biz besties, Jess, encouraged me to get it sorted and offered to help me tackle a little bit at a time while teaching me the basics as we go. After 6+ hours of categorizing and organizing, I was only mildly less overwhelmed, but at Jess’s suggestion, we decided to start with the silver since “it’ll be the most easily identifiable and easy to value”.
This is just a portion of the entire collection. I started by sorting everything into types of jewelry. Getting there slowly, but surely!
Gather
Supplies:
HOW TO IDENTIFY SILVER
Once you have your supplies, the easiest place to start is by simply looking for the sterling silver engraving on the piece, which will be marked with a 925. According to the Tiffany & Co. website, in 1851, Tiffany was the first American company to institute the .925 sterling silver standard that is now used around the world. This number tells us that the metal is sterling silver, or 92.5% pure silver. Since pure silver is so soft and malleable, the added base metals make 925 silver more durable, and better for wearable jewelry, than its 99.9% counterpart while retaining its appearance. This part might seem familiar if you’ve read past Flipside blog, Surprising Ways to Identify Sterling Silver + Coins.
Your loop magnifying glass is going to come in handy when searching for this marking since often the engraving on the back of the piece is either incredibly small, hidden in a design element, or obstructed by tarnish.
If you are unable to find the 925 marking, but still suspect it is silver, a PuriTest will give you an answer. This particular test Jess had on hand had a liquid to test for silver, gold, and platinum. Another quick method if you don’t have a test on hand, is to take a magnet to it. Silver is not magnetic, unlike other base metals, so you should feel zero pull.
925 marking | identifying a piece with the loop | testing with silver kit
HOW TO CLEAN SILVER
Polishing silver can provide a night and day difference in the appearance of your item. “Over time, silver tarnishes and starts to look dull. Sterling silver tarnishes when exposed to salty air, chlorine, sulfur, humidity, perspiration, cosmetics, household bleach, and other strong chemicals”, however, “polishing should be done minimally and only a few times during the silvers lifespan since each polish removes part of the metal” says Tiffany & Co. An easy way to bring life back into a silver piece, is to polish it. This one is so simple it hardly needs a section! If you have a proper cloth, you’ll rub it until it looks cleaner.
Don’t have a silver cleaning cloth on hand? Try THESE clever DIY tricks!
“Over time, silver tarnishes and starts to look dull. Sterling silver tarnishes when exposed to salty air, chlorine, sulfur, humidity, perspiration, cosmetics, household bleach and other strong chemicals”. Polishing brings new life back into the piece like magic!
HOW TO VALUE SILVER
Pricing any inventory can be a challenge when you are looking to comp like-items, but jewelry has always felt extra daunting to me because where do you even start?! I was incredibly relieved to hear that with silver, the value starts in the weight. Begin by weighing the item, plug it into a Sterling Silver Melt Weight Calculator, and you have the melt weight. Melt weight is the metal value of an item if it was melted down and split up into its component metals.
As a reseller, this will give me a starting point for pricing the item since I know it’s worth at least the melt weight. I learned from Jess that once you have the melt weight, you can determine a cost by multiplying that number by 30%+ depending on the condition of the piece, the desirability of the style, and, of course, the value of the other design elements involved, like stones. Identifying a maker’s mark on the item will also provide you more insight into the piece, such as age, potential value, country of origin, etc. Having a notable marking will most likely increase the value.
AND THERE YA HAVE IT!
After a few hours with Jess, she raised my confidence and motivated me to tackle the rest of the piles slowly. Great lesson learned—just dive in! I’d been waiting for the right time, and it turns out the time is now. And don’t forget, when in doubt, call on your resale bestie, Google Lens.
Want to peek pieces of this collection in person? Find Notorious Vintage popped up THIS Saturday May 4th from 11-5pm at the Flipside showroom for their Garden Party Curated Collection.
Flipside Garden Party is this Friday from 12 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 11 to 5 p.m. at the Flipside Showroom. Featured is a curated collection of vintage treasures highlighting cottage core furniture, fashion, home decor, jewelry, and accessories.